Investigating the Association Between Social Network Size and Temperamental Fear in Infants and Toddlers

While social network size has been linked to socio-cognitive skills in previous work, its role in socioemotional development remains understudied. This study examined whether the size and composition of infants' and toddlers' weekly social networks are associated with parent-reported social fear (i.e., wariness or distress toward unfamiliar people). Drawing on a large sample of 492 children aged 8 to 24 months, we assessed social network size (i.e., the number of people in the child's social network) and characteristics of social network composition via the Child Social Network Questionnaire and measured social fear using the Infant Behavior Questionnaire–Revised for infants aged 8-13 months and the Toddler Behavior Assessment Questionnaire for toddlers aged 18-24 months. Our results showed that social network size remained stable from 8 to 24 months. We found a consistent negative association between social network size and parent-reported social fear in both infants and toddlers. We further examined the moderating effect of relationship type (adult versus peers, close versus distant, in-person versus hybrid). The number of adult versus peer contacts did not moderate the association. In toddlers, the number of distant contacts (i.e., individuals outside of the household) was associated with lower social fear, whereas a greater number of close (i.e., individuals residing in the same home) contacts correlated with higher fear. Among infants, only the number of in-person contacts (i.e., interacting face-to-face) was linked to lower social fear; no association was found for hybrid contacts (i.e., interacting both in-person and virtually). These findings suggest that larger social network size is linked to lower social fear in early childhood, and is moderated by the nature of those relationships, such as proximity (close versus distant) and interaction mode (in-person versus online). The study highlights how temperamental traits and early social context may interact with each other in the first two years of life.